News Roundup
There’s been lots of interesting news lately, so I’ll dive right in. 1. The state supreme court issued several opinions yesterday. By far the most significant criminal case is State […]
The Informer’s Privilege
The court of appeals recently decided State v. Dark. It’s a concise opinion that summarizes and applies the black-letter law on an issue that comes up regularly: when must the […]
Sentence Reduction Credit: The Basics
In several prior posts (including this one) I provided a link to the Department of Correction’s administrative regulation on sentence reduction credits. I’ve written about the credits applicable in impaired […]
United States Supreme Court Denies Certiorari in Substitute Analyst Case
As I have discussed in a number of prior posts [editor’s note: the most recent of those posts is here], the North Carolina courts have been struggling with whether the […]
Discovery in Child Pornography Cases
There’s a recurrent discovery issue in child pornography cases. Generally, it goes like this: the defendant is arrested and charged with a child pornography offense. The prosecution contends that the […]
News Roundup: World Cup Edition
The world’s biggest sporting event begins today in South Africa. I’ve been playing soccer more or less continuously — albeit not very well — for more than 30 years. Predictably, […]
Good Time, Bureau of Prisons Style
The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Barber v. Thomas on Monday, upholding the manner in which the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) calculates “good time credits” under 18 U.S.C. […]
Expert Testimony Regarding Impairment
Rule 702(a1) was enacted in 2006 (effective for hearings held August 21, 2006 or later) to render admissible two types of expert testimony on the issue of impairment: (1) testimony […]
The Second Look Doctrine, Part II
Last week, I posted about the second look doctrine. (You can read that post here.) Recall that the basic idea is that if the police have custody of an object […]
The CSI Effect
I may be the only person in America who has never seen an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Nonetheless, I am interested in the so-called CSI effect. As The […]